2013A&A...555L..10S

We present a model of the compact star in Cassiopea A that accounts for its unusually fast cooling behavior. This feature is interpreted as an enhancement in the neutrino emission triggered by a transition from a fully gapped, two-flavor, color-superconducting phase to a crystalline phase or an alternative gapless, color-superconducting phase. By fine-tuning a single parameter - the temperature of this transition - a specific cooling scenario can be selected that fits the Cas A data. Such a scenario requires a massive M∼2M_☉ star and is, therefore, distinctive from models invoking canonical 1.4M_☉ mass star with nucleonic pairing alone.